by Stacey Lynn
Mondays were apparently slow mornings, and I had hated that part—only because it left me too much time to think of Jaden. The way he’d been so gentle with Sophie this morning.
The way he hadn’t been gentle with me—
I shook the thought out of my head as I rang up a customer and checked out.
I’d already called the garage four times that morning, and each time Olivia had laughingly answered that Sophie was doing just fine. That men from the club seemed enthralled with her and she wasn’t getting in anyone’s way. Mostly she just clung to Jaden’s leg while he worked.
Which had settled my nerves. Somewhat.
“Here you go,” I said to Mrs. Claviss, and handed her the receipt. I knew her from my childhood, and she’d always been kind to me. She and my mom had been friends since I learned how to crawl. I was pretty sure her visit was my mom’s doing, considering she’d shown up looking perfect already.
“Take care, Jules, and I’m glad you’re home. I bet your mom is, too.”
I smiled politely. “Of course. And it’s great to be home again.”
She waved me goodbye as Cassie walked up next to me with a supply of hair products to restock on the shelves.
“She seems nice,” she said. “How do you know her?”
I began placing shampoo on a shelf. “She’s been friends with my mom forever. Runs the Sunday school class at my parents’ church.”
“Is there anyone in this town who isn’t friendly? I feel like everyone we’ve met has been incredibly nice.”
My mind instantly saw Jaden’s hardened eyes and clenched fists.
“Most of them are.” I resisted the urge to press my palms against my cheeks to see if they were as hot as they felt.
“All right. Well, you can take off whenever you’re done with this. Have a good day!”
I watched her practically skip to the back of the salon, and shook my head, smiling. They were always so cheerful. Maybe I should bring Jaden in here, and see if their cheerfulness would rub off on him.
The thought made me snort out loud as I finished with the products.
“See you girls tomorrow!” I said after I clocked out and had said my goodbyes. One final phone call to Olivia had told me that yes, Sophie was still fine. Jaden was apparently inside the clubhouse with her, getting her a snack, and everything was just fine.
I hung up on her after she told me to stop worrying.
But I took her advice and decided to see how Faith was doing. After she and Ryker had hooked up, she’d taken Olivia’s old job working at Gunner’s tattoo shop. It was just two blocks away, on the same street as Bella Salon.
In truth, everything in Jasper Bay was two blocks away from each other.
I smiled as I entered GetInked2 and saw Faith ringing up a costumer at the counter. The customer, a young girl who barely looked eighteen, had a white patch at the back of her neck—evidence of her new ink.
“Hey, Faith.”
She looked up, pushed her black hair over her ear, and grinned. “Hey! Just a second.” She turned back to the customer, reviewed the aftercare instruction sheet, and once the girl was gone, turned her attention on me. “What are you doing here?”
“Just got off work, was wondering if you’d want to grab a late lunch if you haven’t eaten yet.”
“You bet. Let me go to the back and tell Gunner real quick.”
I waited, my fingers tapping mindlessly on the glass countertop, and surveyed the piercings. They’d always fascinated me and made me feel icky at the same time. The good girl in me couldn’t understand how someone would mutilate their body so permanently. Or why they’d want to stretch their earlobes. What would those people look like when they were eighty and had quarter-sized holes in their lobes?
But another part of me—a part that had loved the freedom of being with Scratch—found something adventurous about being pierced in a place no one could see. I’d never wanted my eyebrow or lip pierced. Or my belly button—that seemed too cliché for a girl to do.
But other body parts?
A small, thrilling buzz danced along my skin and heated my cheeks at the thought.
“Ready?” Faith asked, snapping me out of my jewelry perusal. She grinned. “See something you want?”
Uh. “No,” I mumbled, chewing on my thumbnail.
Faith noticed the nervous gesture. “What do you want?” she asked, walking behind the counter. She set her purse down on the glass countertop and pulled out a small ring of miniature keys. “Gunner has a slow day, he could do something.”
Gunner? See my nipples? I licked my lips nervously.
Faith chucked softly. “C’mon Jules, you’re staring at this stuff like you’re having some fantasy.”
And I was. The way Jaden bit my nipple… what would he do if he saw a metal loop around it? I squeezed my eyes closed. It wouldn’t happen again.
Whatever we’d done had been a mistake.
“I’d pay a thousand dollars right now to know what you’re thinking about.”
My eyes snapped open and I was met with Faith’s wide grin. Her crystal clear blue eyes sparkled.
“Um. I’ve always wondered about what that would be like.”
Heat suffused my cheeks as I tapped on the glass, giving in—not that I’d do it, but I could at least admit my curiosity to Faith. She’d never judge.
She peered down and saw the small metal ring with the light blue jewel centered on it.
Her eyes widened with glee. “Your nipples?” she whispered before her mouth spread into a full grin. Her mouth opened like she wanted to squeal.
I flinched in anticipation.
“Oh my gosh, you have to! You absolutely have to do it. It’d be so cute. So naughty under all your sweet girliness.”
“No way.” I shook my head and took a step back. “It’s just a thought… a curiosity. I could never do it.”
Faith clapped her hands together. “But it’d be so awesome. And the little jewel matches your eyes. You have got to do this!”
Nerves bubbled from my throat into a pathetic laugh. It wasn’t very long ago that Faith had been under a heavy weight of her life with Black Death. The fact that she was now smiling and laughing so freely spoke volumes of the healing she’d done in the last few months—physically and emotionally.
I almost didn’t want to make her disappointed by saying no.
But that’d be idiotic. Who pierces their nipples just to make one of their best friends happy?
I shook my head again. “No way, Faith. Let’s just do lunch.”
She pressed her lips together into a pout. “Not unless you do this.”
“You’re blackmailing me for lunch in exchange for nipple piercing?”
“Who wants their nips pierced?”
I snapped my head to the left. Gunner walked out of the hallway, a smirk on his lips as he stared at my chest.
“Gross, Gunner.”
“Sorry.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “I hear nipple talk and I have to look.”
My eyes flashed Faith. “And he’s the guy you want to do this to me?”
Faith grinned and shrugged. “Come on. You know you want to.”
“All the cool kids are doing it,” I responded sarcastically.
But darn it—I felt the pull toward doing something crazy. I felt myself giving in and heard Faith squeal when she noticed my resistance fading.
“Yay!” Her feet moved so quickly she practically jumped over the counter before she grabbed my hand. “Gunner, quick! Before she changes her mind.”
“On it,” he mumbled, and went to the back.
“Why does this seem so important to you?” I asked Faith as I allowed her to pull me toward one of the chairs. The ink stations were set up behind a half-wall on the back side of the counter. You couldn’t see people getting work done from the front entryway, but you could hear the buzz of the needles when you walked in if a client was there.
Now, there was only the sound of Thirty Seconds to Mars bla
ring through the speakers and my heart pounding in my ears.
She shrugged and shoved me into a chair. “Because you’re always so serious, and I know you have a ton on your lap with moving back and Sophie and being a single mom. But I also want you to remember to have some fun every once in a while, like you used to. And besides, no one would see this, so it’s like your own naughty secret.” She stopped, waggled her eyebrow. “And I bet Jaden would freaking love it.”
My cheeks boiled with heat and I choked. “Jaden? Nothing would happen with him.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Faith snorted. “Right. Like nothing happened on Friday?”
She was referring to the kiss. I knew that.
Yet it didn’t stop me from remembering the way he’d dropped to his knees in front of me, propped my thighs on his shoulders, and then ate me like a man starving.
“Oh my God,” she gasped and fell into a swiveling stool next to the chair. “Something did happen. You have to tell me.” She clasped her hands together, pleading.
“Nothing,” I choked out. “Nothing happened.”
“Liar, but I’ll let it slide. You two will figure out your crap eventually.”
I scowled—wondered how it’d become so obvious to other people that we, in fact, did have ‘crap to settle,’ as she so eloquently put it.
But then Gunner was back. Faith jumped out of her chair. “I’ll go get the jewelry!”
Gunner shook his head. “You sure you want to do this?”
I stared at his hands while he tugged on rubber gloves. Then he pulled out some metal gun thing, a thick metal spike. Might be an exaggeration, but I knew that metal needle was going to be shot through my sensitive nipples.
They hardened beneath my bra at the thought. My body tingled with anticipation.
I wouldn’t admit it, but Faith was right. Even though nothing would happen again with Jaden. I still wondered, what would he do if he saw my pierced nipples?
The corners of my lips lifted into a grin.
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “I’m ready.”
“What dat?” Sophie’s grease-smudged finger pointed under the hood of the car I was currently working on.
“Filter,” I replied. Who knew a kid could ask so many questions? She’d been full of them all day long, pointing her fingers and scrunching her eyebrows toward everything that caught her attention.
If she didn’t have a grease smudge across her forehead and down her right cheek, it might have gotten annoying. But damned if I didn’t think Sophie’s unending questions were the cutest thing. It helped that her huge blue eyes had the same fascinated curiosity that Scratch’s always did.
She’d peppered me with questions about tools, cars, men, the clubhouse, and the outdoor gun range for the last six hours. Yet some strange part of me took some pride in being the one to answer them.
As if her blue eyes looked at me with trust, and each question I answered, every small explanation I gave, only increased her trust in me.
I hoped like hell I didn’t fuck that up. If Scratch couldn’t be here to take care of his kid, that job became mine. And as the morning and afternoon wore on, Sophie staying either close to me or keeping her eyes on me when another brother came and pulled her away, I began feeling the weight of that job.
It unsettled something inside me, being responsible for someone so small.
Made me realize how big of a job Jules had had over the last two years.
Made me pissed she hadn’t tried harder to tell me about the kid. More pissed at myself that I knew I wouldn’t have taken the time to listen.
My hand slipped as I tightened the bolt on the gasket case.
“Fuck!”
I pulled my hand back, saw the blood already pouring from the knuckles on my right hand, and cursed again.
I grabbed the first thing I saw—a dirty rag at the edge of the hood—and wrapped it up.
Sophie pouted. “You otay?”
I hissed in a breath. I’d be fine, but scratching skin off your knuckles hurt like a bitch. “Fine.”
“You tay bad word.”
I snorted. “Yeah, half-pint. Get used to it.”
I turned, searching for a clean rag or something to stop the bleeding, when Sophie jumped off the stool I had perched her on so she could watch me work.
“Mommy!”
I found a clean rag, dropped the dirty one in the trash, and rewrapped my hand.
Sophie was halfway to the parking lot by the time I caught up to her, and Jules was just parking her car.
When she opened her door, Sophie threw her arms around Jules’s thighs and squeezed tight.
I paused in my step, something thick lodged in my throat as Jules’s smile increased until it reached ear to ear. She reached down and picked Sophie up, planting her on her hip.
Her smile disappeared and I watched her wince, but it disappeared before the blonde duo crossed the parking lot.
“Hey,” I said. Red smudges appeared on her cheeks and I frowned. “What’s going on?”
She shook her head, pulled her eyes to the sky before bringing them back to me.
“Nothing,” she said.
Bullshit, I thought.
“How was Sophie today?”
I looked at the half-pint, my new nickname for her, and shook my head with a grin. “She talks a lot.”
Jules laughed. Damned if that sound didn’t spark something to life in my crotch. I clutched my injured hand tighter.
“Yeah, kids do that. Sorry.”
I shrugged. “No need. She learned a lot, guys played with her some, and she helped me work.”
Jules wiped at the grease lining Sophie’s cheek. “I can see that.”
“Uncah Jaden tay bad word.”
I feigned a growl at Sophie for blowing my cover. “Weren’t supposed to tell on me.” I looked at Jules unashamed. “Told you it’d happen.”
She looked at the bloody rag on my hand. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” Wanna kiss it and make it better? I squeezed my hand harder and mentally kicked my own ass. “It’ll be fine.”
I should have left—turned heel and walked away, found a bandage for my hand. But I couldn’t. Something about Jules pulled me in, just like always. Something indescribable.
Heat pulsed between us.
A thick silence fell around us as Sophie wiggled on her mom’s hips. Jules winced when Sophie gripped her shirt as she set the girl on her feet. She took off like a shot toward Switch.
Who knew that fuckin’ guy could be so good with kids? Watching him crouch down, lift Sophie, and throw her in the air so high her squeals lit up the parking lot still shocked the hell out of me—even if it was the tenth time he’d done that.
Something about Jules wasn’t right. She was keeping something from me. It wasn’t my right to ask, but something in me demanded to know.
“What’s wrong?”
She cleared her throat and looked away, her eyes focused on Sophie with Switch. “Nothing.”
Liar.
Loudly, the door to the garage office slammed against the outside wall and Liv poked her head through the doorway. “Julianna McAllister! Get your ass in here and show me your tits!”
Jules’s cheeks burst into flames.
Her head dropped, and she muttered, “Oh, God.”
I spoke before I could stop myself, taking a step toward her at the same time. “Why does she want to see your tits, Jules?”
My eyes settled on them like they were homing beacons.
There was only reason—
My dick hardened instantly, as if it was trying to force its way out of my zipper.
“You naughty, naughty girl,” I smirked, my eyes regretfully raising to hers. “You got pierced?”
“No.” Her red cheeks belied her words.
The thought of metal strung through nipples my mouth couldn’t get enough of just nights ago was enough for me to want to blow my load. A barbell? A ring? Something with a
sparkling jewel my teeth could bite down and tug—
Fuck. I adjusted my dick. I didn’t care that Jules saw my hand go to my jeans, either. I fuckin’ ate it up.
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” My voice was heavy with sudden need.
“You’re not pierced.”
I arched an eyebrow. “You sure?” She licked her lips.
I almost came in my pants at the thought of what I suddenly wanted her tongue doing. Like tracing my piercing at the tip of my dick. Then her eyes dropped to my denim-covered crotch. Again.
Yes, my dick shouted.
A low, hungry sound escaped her throat.
“Jules!”
I looked up, growling at Liv in frustration when she screamed again.
“Liv needs me.” She turned, hurried off without looking back before I could tell her that I needed her.
But as I watched her tight ass disappear into the office, I couldn’t exactly figure out what I needed her for.
Something told me it wasn’t just to play a sweaty game of hide-and-seek the apadravya.
“Talk to him,” Daemon said. His eyes were on mine, mine were on his, but I didn’t hear a damn thing he said. I just saw his lips moving silently.
Because hours later, my dick was still hard and my brain was still thinking nipples, nipples, nipples. Jules has pierced nipples.
Fuck.
I scrubbed my hand down my face. “What?”
Daemon slammed his fist into the table. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
Ryker laughed across the table from me. He leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and grinned. “I know.”
I growled at him. “Don’t fuckin’ say it.”
“What am I missing?” Daemon’s eyes darted between the two of us. “And what in the hell does it have to do with Sporelli.”
I glared at Ryker. “Nothing.”
He laughed. A full, throw-your-head-back kind of laugh that got the attention of the rest of the men around the table. They all stared at him.
Daemon focused on me. “Then talk to the damn chief.”
Hell. I hated that pot-bellied asshole. He’d been in the club’s pocket for years, but using him seemed like a pussy way to go about fixing all this crap with Sporelli.